Rather, dogs – and tamed wolves – probably learn to associate human arm movements with treats, play and affection. Researchers who argue for a dog “theory of mind” are overlooking this obvious explanation, Wynne says.

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“I think what’s going on here is straightforward conditioning,” he says. “Have they forgotten about Pavlov?”

Clever wolves

Wynne’s study is a rebuttal to a string of headline-grabbing papers that used similar approaches to demonstrate that dogs read humans better than wolves, and even chimpanzees. He says those reports used different environments and conditions for tests on wolves and dogs.

To level the playing field, Wynne – along with UFL colleagues Monique Udell and Nicole Dorey – worked with tame wolves that have received near constant human exposure since birth. The researchers also tested both wolves and dogs under the same conditions&colon; with familiar trainers and in outdoor enclosures.

Standing 2.5 meters from an animal, a trainer signalled one of two sand-filled paint cans placed on either side of the trainer. If the animal moved toward the correct can, it received a treat and heard a click.

Wolves picked the right pail about seven times out of 10, on average, while dogs tested under identical conditions did slightly better than chance.

Dogs that performed the same test in their homes, though, equalled the wolves’ performance, while shelter dogs picked the correct pail in only three of every 10 attempts.

Learned tricks

Rather than argue for a wolf theory of mind, Wynne says animal learning explains his team’s results.

“These limbs of the human have been useful to pay attention to. In the past they have delivered good things,” he says. “Every time you throw a ball for a puppy you are offering your limb as a conditioned stimulus.”

While domestication has made dogs more trainable, it hasn’t offered them insight into our wants and needs, he says. “Any idiot can tame a dog. If you want to have a tame wolf, you’re going to have to invest much, much more energy.”

However, Brian Hare, an animal behaviourist at Duke University in Durham North Carolina and author of several studies pointing to a dog theory of mind, isn’t yet ready to concede.

“I think there is so much data from other labs pointing to the previous finding of dogs being unusually skilled at using human cues that it will take extraordinary findings to argue against it,” he says.

“I would not yet say these are extraordinary in terms of being conclusive, but they do suggest that we need to take another close look.”